


we wear our shrouds

by lucrezias-sparklyhairnet (shedseventears)



Category: The Borgias
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Sibling Incest, implied i guess, vague implications of abusive-ish behavior?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 18:43:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/814765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shedseventears/pseuds/lucrezias-sparklyhairnet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cesare visits Lucrezia after the murder of Alfonso.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we wear our shrouds

**Author's Note:**

> I was asked to write something about Cesare and Lucrezia "fighting", so this is what I came up with. This is based much more on the historical Cesare and Lucrezia, hence her grief over Alfonso and the hints of the "French plague".

                Thrice she crosses out her title.  _Princess of Salerno,_ struck through one, two, three times in ink.  It leaves only _the most unhappy_ for them to read, the only true title she needs and has.  For her brother has left her a widow, and a widow is not a duchess or a princess or much of anything at all.

                She eats off of earthenware; her linens are black, her bed is black, her child—their child—is wears a black bonnet ‘round his little head.  It is a somber thing: a boy under one waving his fat little fists in dark ribbons and silks.  But more somber still is his father’s corpse, hastily hidden by layers of dirt.  So when she spends her days writing ciphered letters, letting that wet nurse tend to Rodrigo’s cries, she tells herself that if she doesn’t mourn Alfonso, no Borgia will.

                And Rome mourns with her family, lifting its eyes to Cesare’s bloodstained hands.

                For as much as they may pray for Alfonso’s soul, as much as they might whisper and snarl over Valentino’s cruelty, they revel yet.  This is their black duke, the creature who will carry Rome in his pocket ‘til it sits at the top of the world.  In Naples, he will be the Borgia monster; in Rome, he is a conqueror.

                _Do not cross Valentino,_ they will say with glee.  _His executioner will hold you tight and squeeze you dry ‘til there’s nothing left at all._

As Michelotto had held the duke of Bisceglie.  Cradled him like a babe, for he was still so weak.  And oh, Sancia had screamed when she saw her brother, his pretty face like marble turned to the ceiling.  She’d played the widow then, gathering him up in her arms and shouting bloody vengeance at _Valentino._

                Lucrezia had imagined herself in Sancia’s place more than once.  The sister with more than a sister’s grief, crying for the heads of those who would lay him low.  Even with Cesare’s cryptic smiles, the way he would clap Alfonso on the shoulder—too close, too hard, like he wished to knock the life out of him—she’d never put herself in a widow’s shoes.

                So for a long time, Lucrezia had not screamed.  And when she did, she wondered if it was over Alfonso’s grave or Cesare, who put him there.

                Now she writers her ciphered letters to Roman ladies who would catch her father’s attention. She thinks of the worms eating their way through Alfonso’s lovely skull, and so she buys another few prayers for his soul.  For Cesare, she does nothing.  There are no prayers, no hastily concocted marital alliances, no letters.  Her brother may well smear his heart with the ashes of those who fell before him.  She will take no part in it.

                _Your father the pope already plans your next marriage,_ Caterina Gonzaga writes in patient code.  _They whisper of the Estes._

Oh, but they may whisper.  And she will press her lips to her little son’s curls and think of her little Giovanni. Giovanni, who she hasn’t treated as a son since he was born.  Giovanni, who may very well inherit Cesare’s growing bounty if Charlotte d’Albret bears him nothing but that little girl.  That would taste sweet.

                Her ladies, swathed in black as she is, ask sweet-voiced questions about when they may return to Rome.  And her words may as well be a strike across the cheek, for she so would like to draw their blood.  Lucrezia, not yet twenty-one, envies their honeyed innocence.  They who’ve never worn the collars of her family, keeping a careful step away from all that the Borgias have to offer.

                She dreams of offering their souls up to God, trading their untouched youth for a few years more with Alfonso.   With his body cold she is again a prize of breasts and womb and Borgia blood, a chess piece for Valentino to move across his board. 

                They saw each other once before she left for Nepi.  Him, dressed in all his finery: simple, but rich to the touch.  No pretense of mourning in his long strides, the low bow before Lucrezia in her widow’s weeds.  He took her hand then, their flesh thankfully separated by the leather of his gloves.

                “This, too, shall pass.”

                And her throat had been too caked by salt tears to ask what he meant.  _This:_ her grief?  _This:_ the betrayal?  The bile that rises within her at the thought of him?

                   Yet Cesare with all his shadows is not the one she can’t bear.  Cesare, doing what Cesare did—it was what she’d expected, the inevitability tucked away in the corners of her mind.  Oh, but what could do but kill Alfonso? 

                The worst of it is that wispy memory.  When she was a girl of fifteen, untouched but for Giovanni Sforza’s clumsy fingers.  (And even later then she would be declared _virgo intacta,_ a virgin for Alfonso.  So she must shut her eyes and sigh and pretend for the world that she was white as snow.)

                He fought bulls, her brother.  Would fight them still if he was not so occupied with fighting men.  When she stood fifteen and barely marred, him twenty and red with robes instead of blood, he fought bulls and laid their heads in the dust.

                It was the first bullfight she’d witnessed since that grasping, uncertain night with her husband.  So long they waited for the pope’s word, the approval of Lucrezia being not only wedded but bedded.  (And if only he had kept his mouth shut!)  And when it was over she felt neither sad nor happy; she felt nothing at all.

                So while Giovanni grumbled, Lucrezia peered through her fingers into the ring, prayed sweet prayers for her brother’s safety.  If she had kept on that way—peeking through at the brilliant colors and splashing blood—it would have been like any other of Cesare’s fights.  Lucrezia, pale and nervous, shrinking from torn flesh.

                _It’s so very Spanish,_ Giovanni Sforza said.  And perhaps then she lowered her hands, leaned forward to watch her brother battle.  _This barbarism._

Cesare, a barbarian?  They would not agree later, when the sound of his footsteps sent them into tremors.  But then he was the cardinal who fucked Fiammetta and rode alongside Michelotto with his garrotes.  Then she thought he could fall.

                “It could get bloody,” Sforza said, between a sneer and a smirk.  His hand curled about hers, and she imagined tracing Cesare’s lifeline the way Giulia Farnese taught her.  “The good cardinal’s been lucky so far, but—“

                But he was lucky still, sidestepping the bull and wielding his blade.  He was laughing, and so her lips curved as his do, so she laughed despite her husband’s confused frown.  So close her brother came to death with each lunge of the bull; and yet never did lose control.  The game was his.  He _wanted_ it.

                She wanted it for him.

                The bull stepped—Cesare raked the blade across its shoulder—the blood spurted—and her breath quickened.  Her heart beat against her chest, but oh, it was not fear.  And her mouth would not shut.  As if she had to breathe in the red, the bellowing bull, her brother.

                As her cheeks pinked and the bull fell scarlet to another cut, Cesare looked over his shoulder.  Looked at Lucrezia in all her gold and jewels.

                He cuts its head off in the end, his expensive clothes soaked to the skin.  He reveled then—in victory, in her admiration.  Stared into his sister as she felt something great and pulsing within her, like a second heart that dominated all.

                When Perotto slipped his fingers beneath her skirts, Lucrezia thought of her bloodstained brother, and at night she does still.

XXX

                “At last, you wear black like me.  Playing the widow suits you well.”

                He’s always wanted her in black.  Whether that’s because of the way it looks on Lucrezia—the gold of her hair against dark silks—or because of what that black means, he does not care.  Cesare Borgia has not the time to ponder why he wants things: it’s more a matter of taking them, making the die fall as he wishes it.

                With ladies gone and guards dismissed, Lucrezia strikes out against him.  He catches her hand in his, squeezes her fingers tight the way he did when they were children.

                _Ah!_ she’d cry, a little girl with too-large eyes.  _You’re hurting me!_

But even then, she’d wanted more.  And far be it from him to deny her anything.

                He presses a kiss to her palm, lips brushing the wedding band she wears still.  “The most unhappy duchess.  Would you say that still if I could make you a princess once more?”  With the snap of his wrist she is close as she ever was, yet further away.  The heat of her pressed against him, the steel in her eyes.  “Throw away Naples for somewhere much, much greater?”

                “Greater for me, or you?”  Her finger, ungloved, traces down his cheek; and her talon-nails are a thing of beauty.  They rest upon a scar.  From the French plague or battle, he would not now know.  Neither conflict troubled him much and then they were gone, like all other fleeting obstacles. 

                Alfonso d’Aragona has been the longest-lasting problem still.  Even now, as he rots in the dirt, the man sends Lucrezia into ecstasy.  Though not now over his form or what he could do with it.  No, Cesare knows his sister well enough to recognize her thirst for dramatics.

                She had been sixteen, him twenty-one.  Another visit to Rome as they laughed about Juan and sneered at her weakling husband.  Then he knew it was for his own advantage, as she did not hate Giovanni Sforza as much as she’d like him to believe.

                But as he’d told her about what he might do to those who would come between them, her eyes had grown wide and her chest had trembled with caught breath. 

                “Would you like that?” He’d asked, his hand resting against her throat.  Even then he had liked the feel of her blood beneath his fingers, the life of her.  “Watching someone die when you wanted them to.”

                She needn’t have answered, for he knew then—knew always—what Lucrezia wished.  Then, not now, those wishes more often aligned with his.  And it was easier that way.

                “Stop it, Cesare,” she’d said, her palm pressed against his chest.  Fighting him off, though she never could and would never want to.  Not really.  “You frighten me so.”

                _You frighten me._ The breathy gasps that would send Alfonso d’Aragona to her side, arms spread protectively against that from which she needed no protection.  And when Alfonso stood as the barrier, the wall that separated Lucrezia from her great and terrifying brother, Lucrezia had looked over her shoulder and smirked.

                _Come and get me, then._ She’d sipped their jealousy from crystal, and sobbed when it could be no more.

                “You aren’t as pretty as you once were, brother.”  And that, of all things, does bring heat to the back of his throat.  For even those few scars—hardly more than a few imperfections—have had him studying his mirror, comparing his just-flawed skin to her perfect complexion.  Another thing to set them apart.  “Do you play at mourning?”

                “Not as well as you do.”  Her lips curl, his beautiful sister set to monstrosity.  “Do not tell me you mourn still.  Rome needs you, my love.”

                “Rome needs me?”  Lucrezia’s skirts slide against the floor, her great shadow.  “Or you need me—to sell to the highest bidder.  For I am your dear sister, am I not?  The sister who would do anything to further her brother’s success?”  She plays with the crucifix; one of those that Alfonso gave her.  “As you would do anything for me.”

                “I would.  I did.”  He can hear each one of her breaths, perfectly timed with his.  “Naples is finished for us.  Was finished long ago.  I have freed you, Lucrezia.”

                She turns her cheek, eyes bright and narrowed and spilling over with what must be tears.  He would have no more of those.  “No, you’ve trapped me more.  For I must mourn, and all the world knows that there is someone to blame.  You’ve left my son fatherless.”

                “But he needn’t be.”  His thumb passes across her jaw, feels the tremble of her teeth.  “I’ve already taken the other one as my own.”

                The other one.  Her little bastard boy, who Cesare would have brought up to the sword.  Rodrigo comes with a title, with the kingdom of Naples nipping at his heels. “You?  You will father the boy you’ve made fatherless?  No.  I do not think so.”

                “You cannot expect to keep the child.”  His hand passes over her shoulder, and he imagines her mouth open and laughing and red with wine.  “You know the game, Lucrezia.”

                “Oh, I know the game.”  And her nails are raking across his cheek before he can react; for if anyone could surprise him, it would be his sister.  The blood spilled might as well be he own, and for that she laughs.  “And I was playing it—do you not understand?  If you had only been satisfied… but you never are.”  She would never have him satisfied.  “If you had let Alfonso alone, I could have raised my son.  I could have had a husband who loved me without ever worrying about marriage again.”

                Her fingers come to grasp at his throat, and none other would dare.  Her other hand pounds against his chest, a drum over each word.  “You could have had _me._ Only—“  He looks at her as he’s always looked at her; as if he’d like to tear her apart and swallow the pieces.  “Only not the way you wanted.   And, my dear brother—things must always be as you want, mustn’t they?”

                Wiping his fingers over his cheek—looking at the blood they yield—Cesare smiles.  “What I want, you want.  Or you will.  It’s our family, Lucrezia—Father in Rome, me governing the Romagna, you in Ferrara—“

                “Me, a rich lord’s plaything in Ferrara.”  She pushes him away, though the step back he takes is more his will than hers.  “Alfonso d’Este, is that it?  Don’t think I haven’t heard.”

                “Of course you’ve heard.”  And beneath that amiability is an edge; a shiver runs down Lucrezia’s spine at the thought of her brother grabbing her, pulling her, hurting her.  She wanted him to long before Alfonso’s death.  She’s wanted him to spill her blood—just a scratch, his teeth at her shoulder—ever since she watched him spill the bull’s.  “You knew I would catch those letters.”

                Lucrezia tilts her head up, stands on her toes ‘til her lips are a ghost’s breath from his.  “I knew you would catch those letters.  My sweet brother.  They’ll say that it was because of France, because of your grand design.  But I’ll always know that you’re weak.  Envious.”  His hand curls about her wrist, a vice that quickens her heart.  “A pathetic man who couldn’t bear to have his own sister happily married.”  And her voice grows shrill, a hysteria that has every bit of him on edge.  “Alfonso could have done nothing to you.  To _you_.  You were like a drunk fighting a cripple over their tavern _whore_ —“

                He snaps her against the wall, and she laughs again, a dull ache beginning in the back of her head.  “Look at you.  Il Valentino, chasing his sister’s skirts as they say he does.”  Her nails again sink into his flesh as she holds his face in her hands. “Look at you.  Alfonso had no need of killing. He had me because I wanted him to—“

                “I know you, sister.”  His hands are too rough at her waist, her neck; even through the fabric they will leave bruises.  “He had you because he amused you.  The second you grew bored—and you would have—where would Alfonso be?”  Cesare’s hands travel to her wrists, squeeze where the pulse lies before dragging them away.  “Cast aside like the others.  What of that servant boy?  Where were your tears for him?”

                Perotto.  And she had cried out when she’d heard of his death, had wept a little when she thought of her brother’s words commanding his death.  But he was a passing fancy; and soon Cesare’s hands in her hair, his soothing words swept away that memory like dust.

                Oh, but she did not need Perotto.  Alfonso she needed: for the future, for their child’s.  As the Duchess of Bisceglie—well, she could have been that all her life.

                “You have degraded me,” she says, voice low in his ear.  When he closes his eyes at night hers is the voice he hears.  He feels her breath even when it isn’t there.  “Made me exactly what they say I am.  Why?”

                “You know why.”  His thumb presses hard against her lower lip; and it will swell soon.  “Pretending otherwise is beneath you.”

                Beneath _them._

Lucrezia licks her bloodstained fingertips.  Tastes him and herself.  Her brother, who killed for envy and ambition, follows her across the room until he comes to collapse in a great chair.  The scratches will leave scars, fainter than the others.  And he shall wear them with pride.

                She sits in his lap like nothing happened—and in their game, a game of never moving forward, of being trapped in each other like ice, nothing did happen—and wraps her arms around his neck.  “So tell me of Ferrara.  Why would you have me there?”

                He never asks for forgiveness.  She wouldn’t give it. 


End file.
